"We Are Not Afraid" Screenings on 9/11

On September 11, 2025, the museum held three screenings of We Are Not Afraid: Religion’s Response to September 11th, the second film in our “Religious Thoughts During Times of National Crisis” series. Religions For Peace USA held a webinar that featured several clips of the film and a panel discussion with film director Danny Drysdale, scholar Dr. Melissa Matthes (author of When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter), and museum president Chris Stevenson. RFP USA’s talented executive director, Tarunjit Butalia, led the event. We are grateful to RFP USA for hosting this screening.
 
Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute and American Studies program hosted an in-person screening on its Provo campus. The old Varsity Theater was filled, mostly with students who had not been alive at the time of the terrorist attacks. (There was an added layer of mourning there as the day before, Charlie Kirk had been assassinated at Utah Valley University, a short drive from BYU.) The panel discussion, with the same people listed above, was fantastic, with the students sending in many questions to moderator Paul Lambert, the director of the Wheatley Institute’s religion initiative. We are grateful to the Wheatley Institute and the American Studies programs for hosting the screening.
 
There was also a screening in Washington, D.C., at the Foley & Lardner law offices, led by NMAR’s director of content, Dr. Colleen Prior.